This little piece of cyberspace is tended to by your friendly neighborhood international - financial - analyst by day and wanna - be - writer by night. Originally, this page was created to keep everyone back home (Austin, Texas - keep it weird!) updated on my new life in Germany. I hope you can learn a little about life in another culture as well as your own culture through this page, and maybe even have a laugh (usually at my expense) while doing so.

Saturday, November 19, 2016

Obama in Berlin...

One of my favorite things about Berlin is that there is ALWAYS something going on. There's rarely a dull moment. The past couple of days have been pretty crazy here, thanks to a farewell visit from Mr. Obama himself. Basically, the entire city center was on lockdown for 2.5 days... police and tanks were everywhere, public transportation was delayed/ canceled/ re-routed, and much of Berlin was turned into a temporary no-fly zone. This might be normal for city-kids... but not for this suburb-raised girl. It was definitely exciting following what was going on, and seeing how a city operates when top leaders visit.

As most of you know, I live about 5 minutes from the Tegel Airport and drive past it on my way to work. Wednesday evening when Obama arrived, I knew it was pointless to even try to drive home... so I asked a friend who works downtown if he wanted to meet up and see what's going on! The entire street leading to the Brandenburger Tor was blocked off, and there were police and barricades in all of the adjacent streets. So you couldn't even see the main street... and only people who live or work there were permitted access. It was so intimidating that I was too scared to even take a picture!

Then, on Friday afternoon at work, I suddenly saw two black military helicopters circling around (picture below)... evidently accompanying Air Force One! Unfortunately I didn't actually see Air Force One, as it was a rather cloudy afternoon... but I did hear it! Exciting stuff!

If it were to happen on a daily basis, I'd probably be annoyed with the traffic and interruptions... but observing everything from afar for a limited amount of time was definitely interesting.